African Women Playwrights

by Kathy A. Perkins (Editor), Amandina Lihamba (Foreword by)

Overview

This anthology consists of nine plays by a diverse group of women from throughout the African continent. The plays focus on a wide range of issues, such as cultural differences, AIDS, female circumcision, women's rights to higher education, racial and skin color identity, prostitution as a form of survival for young girls, and nonconformist women resisting old traditions. In addition to the plays themselves, this collection includes commentaries by the playwrights on their own plays, and editor Kathy A. Perkins provides additional commentary and a bibliography of published and unpublished plays by African women.

The playwrights featured are Ama Ata Aidoo, Violet R. Barungi, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nathalie Etoke, Dania Gurira, Andiah Kisia, Sindiwe Magona, Malika Ndlovu (Lueen Conning), Juliana Okoh, and Nikkole Salter.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252075735
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	11/11/2008
Series:	None Ser.
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.90(d)

About the Author

Kathy A. Perkins is a professor of theatre at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her publications include Black South African Women: An Anthology of Plays, Strange Fruit: Plays on Lynching by American Women, and several other anthologies of plays.

Table of Contents

ix   FOREWORD   Amandina Lihamba
[Dar es Salaam, Tanzania]
xi   ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
1   INTRODUCTION   Kathy A. Perkins
12   THE DILEMMA OF A GHOST   Ama Ata Aidoo
[Ghana]
62   OVER MY DEAD BODY   Violet Barungi
[Uganda]
100   SHE NO LONGER WEEPS   Tsitsi Dangarembga
[Zimbabwe]
140   BETTER DAYS COME IN BITTER WAYS   Nathalie Etoke
[Cameroon]
150   HOMECOMING   Andiah Kisia (Chika Okigbo)
[Kenya]
170   VUKANI! (WAKE UP!)   Sindiwe Magona
[South Africa]
222   A COLOURED PLACE   Malika Ndlovu (Lueen Conning)
[South Africa]
248   EDEWEDE (THE DAWN OF A NEW DAY)   Julie Okoh
[Nigeria]
318   IN THE CONTINUUM   Dania Gurira and Nikkole Salter
[Zimbabwe and the United States]
363   SELECTED READINGS AND PLAYS
367   CONTRIBUTORS

Editorial Reviews

"[African Women Playwrights] brings together an essential collection of writings by international women."—Feminist Formations

“I have long wished there were a collection of the work of African women playwrights. This unique and valuable volume makes a truly significant contribution to the field of both African theatre and black women’s writing. The plays are stimulating and very interesting, dealing with a range of pertinent issues.”—Jane Plastow, coeditor of Theatre and Empowerment: Community Drama on the World Stage

“These plays are fascinating to read; the plots and characters are varied, interesting, and well developed. Moreover, as the only collection [in English] of plays written exclusively by African women, this collection will be immensely appealing to students and scholars of theatre, literature, cultural studies, African studies, and women’s studies, as well as general readers who are interested in learning about contemporary African plays and playwrights.”—Judith Stephens-Lorenz, editor of The Plays of Georgia Douglas Johnson: From the New Negro Renaissance to the Civil Rights Movement

From the Publisher